1939 WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC " SUMMER STORM " ELECTRICAL GRID & POWER DISTRIBUTION FILM 67874a
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 เม.ย. 2020
- Want to support this channel and help us preserve old films? Visit / periscopefilm
Visit our website www.PeriscopeFilm.com
This black & white educational film is about how electricity is distributed from power stations in a modern community. This film is from 1939 and was presented by Westinghouse.
Opening titles: "SUMMER STORM" (:09-:41). A shirtless boy walks down a city street during a hot summer day in August. A dog and a man are asleep outside as are some people in the park. Children get ice cream from the ice cream truck. Other girls run through a sprinkler in a yard. A man fishes. His fishing line is yanked under the water. Clouds start to move in on the sun. Heavy rain falls onto the dirt. Tree sways in the breeze. People walk down city streets. Some people dunk their heads into a fountain to cool off. A man does chores outside in the heat. A woman puts a pie in the oven. A man works in a factory. City Hall, an elevator. Children cross a street. A boy lays sick in bed as a doctor looks at him. A worker moves Penicillin. Hospital, a woman is placed into an iron lung (:42-3:53). Dark clouds in the sky. A woman walks around a farm. Wind picks up in intensity. Power lines. Wires from the power lines go to each house. A man punches numbers in a machine. A doctor checks on a sick boy in a home. A man sprays outside. A traffic signal. Elevator in a building. Penicillin being made, close on the Penicillin cultures. Two women in a kitchen. A man in a factory, flames heat up. An iron lung machine. Aerial shot of power lines from a dam all the way to a neighborhood. Transformers and insulators at a power station (3:54-6:55). A hand shows how the magnet works. How electricity works is explained in detail. A generator is turned, the light goes on. Water from a water fall. Coal provides steam and smoke comes from a smoke stack. Aerial shot of a map that shows power lines across a city. A dam (6:56-9:27). Banks of Columbia River. Men at work. Construction site where men make a factory to help make electric power. A map of the sprawling Northwest shows Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Minerals (i.e. zinc, copper, iron) are discussed, and with a light dot, shown where they are in that region. Water moving. Power is turned on. Men at work leave a factory. Planes being constructed. Men work in a factory. Motors and pistons turn and spin. Train. A crane carries steel (9:28-12:15). Liquid is poured to be molded. A propellor on a plane spins and then the plane takes off. Clouds and mountains. A tall electric power structure. A man skis and checks the depth of the snow on the mountain. A man keeps records of humidity and rainfall. A weather balloon is launched into the sky. A hand marks up a map of the USA. A man puts paper into a typewriter and types: weather forecast Mississippi Valley area. Nerve center at the power company, men watch a giant screen. A dispatcher receives a phone call. Dark storm clouds, rain falls. The dispatcher makes a call to another section. Buttons pressed in the generator room. The dispatcher makes a call to another station (12:16-16:01). Knobs, gauges, and buttons on the board at the station. Other stations are contacted. A man pulls at a wall, pulling a tube out. Close on fingers pressing. A man on a phone. A man checks gauges. A car pulls up and a man exits to look at a power line, he gets back in and drives away. Rain comes down hard. A man closes a convertible roof. Rain wets clothes left outside hanging on a clothesline. Cars drive through deep puddles, people use umbrellas. Lightning, thunder and heavy rain. Men turn gauges and study their boards. Lights are tuned on from inside a dry house. Lights are going on in homes all around town. More kilowatts. A man checks the generator load. His hand on a button (16:02-20:00). Megawatts gauge. A knob is turned. Rain pours. Lights go on in the town. A doctor looks over a sick boy. Traffic signals still work in the rain. A woman in a kitchen, a man in a barn. Elevator descends. A woman bottles Penicillin. Flames in a factory machine. A sick child in the iron lung machine. Men press buttons in the power company and stare at gauges on the wall. The sun shines from behind a cloud. The storm has ended. The sun returns and lights shut off. A man uses a broom to remove water from his overhang. Children play in a puddle. A cat shakes water off itself. A light is turned off. A power company. Electric wires. Generator. Men check machines in the power company. The machine has a Westinghouse logo on it. Aerial shot of a map as lights go on as night falls (20:01-23:48). End credits (23:49-24:00).
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFilm.com
In 1939, most rural areas did not have electricity. My dad was a manager of a Rural Electrical Co-op for 40 years (1941-1981}. These co-ops built lines and provided electricity to rural homes and farms. Getting electricity was a "life-changing" event that ended a lot of manual labor and greatly improved productivity and living standards. It is something we certainly take for granted now.
FDR signed Rural Electrification Act in 1936 ....I wish same could be done with internet service. I live in a rural area having no ISP. Not until recently I can finally have internet at home because of a cell tower setup close enough for me to access internet using a smartphone....
@Ray Bin Indeed. I live in a tiny town in the intermountain west. It has ~300 people and is about 300 square miles. Not important to have internet? Well, if the dsl goes out, the town can’t pay its employees; the town garage can’t order parts; the water system has problems as it’s a SCADA that requires internet control; the local attendant free gas pump can’t be used because credit cards can’t be charged.
We’re at the point that almost everywhere internet is as vital as electricity now.
@@hntrbr - Y'kno ...maybe we are getting too dependant on internet? Got to admit tho that having some kind of Internet access now beats the hell out of having to drive 15 miles to town to buy car parts and pay bills. I can't wait until Elon Musk gets his Starlink space based internet Wi-Fi service up and running - they're launching mini-satellites at rate of 50 per month now. It's gonna be a big game changer for the present ripoff ISP companies. Watch those prices come down down down!
BTW - community where I live is in central Georgia. Politicians here could give a rat's ass for us without internet....
My mother's family had a Delco battery. That powered their milking machines and their lights. She was born before 1920 in Kansas. Her father had a very modern point of view, always learning and improving his techniques, no dust bowl creation by improper methods for him. Other farm families put their Model T up on blocks and ran a belt around the axle, creating power for many uses, powered by gasoline. Others used windmills. Some had gas on their own properties. Where I live, there was a gas/water separator for the hospital.
@@raybin6873 That (edit: TVA) was good for some and terrible for those whose homes and farms were seized. A side benefit was wiping out malarial swamps. It was an era where the greater good was a religion for FDR. Woe unto the individual who was "standing in the way of progress." Socialism writ large in a decade when many thought capitalism was dead, including FDR.
Barton:I need another 30,000 Kilowatts...
Scotty: I'm giving it all I can!
Nurse those engines, Scotty !
Aye Barton! If I push 'er any harder she's gonna blow!
Electricity is one of those services
we don't fully appreciate until it
is interrupted. These unsung heroes would be aghast at how dependent modern society has become on electric power. I've lived through a number of hurricanes and can attest to how disruptive that can be. Advance preparation is a must for us all.
I certainly agree with you. As well, a non-electronic gas water heater combine with city water service is a blessing during an extended power outage.
I had that type of water heater and city water during an extended outage after Hurricane Gloria in 1985. A lot of friends visited me to have a shower during that time.
@@discerningmind Our family just had a small woodstove installed since we live in the woods and fuel is abundant. Also several rain barrels which gather a phenomenal amount of water in no time!
@@discerningmind And you thought they were coming over to take off their clothes in your home because they had no electricity? Are you underestimating your charm? :)
Very well produced, quietly dignified Westinghouse motion picture, with lots of great shots and well-written narrative explaining the system at work.
🤦♂️ Caution: unvarnished criticism follows. This film explains nothing concerning commercial power generation and distribution of the time. This film is a pointless fluff piece. Yes it shows how central dispatch controlled individual plants back in the days of vacuum tube control circuits.
This pointless waste of money does not explain
1) why additional load is caused by a summer storm (hint: a sudden drop in summer temperatures even in pre-air conditioned America wouldn't cause the load on the local grid to increase. Turning on lights because of clouds? Nope. Making a big deal of the A/C in the penicillin lab? The exact opposite would occur. Lower outside temperature means the A/C would cycle off more often. Even for an ammonia based system of the time.)
2) lightning from a summer storm could be an issue but the film completely side-stepped the existence of the equipment that shunts lightning strikes to ground.
Literally the only bit of technical information presented is how an iron lung of the era functioned.
Work for those willing to work and for those with trade skills. The movie honors and appreciates honest labor. I think of Mike Rowe now.
FANTASTIC video!!
Thankyou George Westinghouse.
Hey Periscope, love ya, but 9:34 through 13:10 is from a completely different film (seems to be about the Bonneville Power Administration in the Pacific Northwest)
EDIT and 16:03-16:34 is a repeat of 15:32-16:03
Yeah. Good film, but weird editing.
I see those high tension power lines near my house in South Texas and never really think about them. I guess this is the way it should be. I really admire the people who work on them.
Check your body for cancer.
When I look at the "mock up town" I see MANY MANY man hours and skilled craftsman making that up and rigging it for lights. You don't see that any more. My hat is off to them.
I am not sure that this can be from 1939 since they mention a threat to an entire production run of Penicillin. Penicillin was not widely used, (or produced) for medical purposes until the 1940s.
I agree. The GMC truck @ 17.50 is a 1942-1946 model.
Well spotted. Absolutely correct.
What they didn’t show was after Mabels clean wash hanging on the line was ruined by the storm, an over-worked and despondent Mabel hung herself on the line. God speed Mabel.
Nah, she ran off with the tight-rope walker in the circus, never to be heard from again.
Allan Hegyes So there’s where my underwear has been all this time!
An interesting old film, but I have no idea where that reel 2 from some 1940s Pacific Northwest defense industries film found its way into the middle of this story.
This looks later than 1939. Penicillin wasn't made in this country til the early 1940s. Plus the women's styles look from 1943 or so.
Paula Cather , I remember eating Mrs. Scott's pie at 2:40 , that was 1947 or two weeks ago and it might have been Mrs.Smith's pie , any how the pie tasted great , oh and that's me and my buddy with our heads in the water fountain or was I chasing the ice cream truck
@@jimthomas777: Did Mrs. Scott moan while you ate her pie ?
This is a great production.
Glad you found this rarity ... it is one of many films we have scanned and preserved.
Love our channel? Help us save and post more orphaned films! Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/PeriscopeFilm Even a really tiny contribution can make a difference.
Join this channel to get access to perks:
th-cam.com/channels/ddem5RlB3bQe99wyY49g0g.htmljoin
Thanks for a great video. Right now in this world, I needed it..
I'm dubious about the 1939 date suggested for this film. For instance, penicillin wasn't available for widespread public use until after WW2.
I was expecting a film about how the power company deals with severe weather like wind and lightning disrupting service rather than dynamic electrical service. Back in those days, temporary brown outs must have been much more common since they didn't have the quick, computerized electronic control we have today. Power production really is a technological ballet. This film only covers making sure there is enough power production when it is needed, but too much power production can damage electrical equipment and blow fuses causing power failures. Electrical demand can fluctuate in an instant threatening to bring it all to a crashing halt. They constantly have to keep on their toes to make sure it all remains in balance. Even so, anything can become a problem that spins out of control causing cascading power failures across many states.
Me too. But most of these films are long on the feel-good and short on anything really technical. They are mostly PR pieces full of fluff.
I don't recall any brown outs, just black outs.
@@BryanTorok That's because they expect that anything even slightly technical would go right over the audience's heads.
There were electrical regulators, basically relays that controlled the amount of current to the field windings of the generator. That is similar to the regulator on an automobile generator or alternator of 1960s or early 1970s, that is prior to them being transistorized. And, there were mechanical regulators to maintain the speed of the generator under varying load. These needed watching and maintenance, but they could react many times faster than any human could.
Lot of errors in this. The date is wrong, there are sections taken from entirely different film reels and there's even a duplicated section.
This is a weird one. They spend a ton of time describing specific things that need electricity and the consequences if it were to fail. (After about three I kind of got the picture.) But everything else in the film is completely unmotivated. We’re measuring snowpack! (Why? This is never mentioned again.) The storm presents a risk that the town will lose power! (The reason for this, or the mechanism by which it would happen, is never explained.) We’re monitoring the weather forecast! (How does that influence the power grid?) Give me thirty thousand more kilowatts! (Why do we need this? Where is it going? What would happen if it weren’t there?) Then it ends and we enumerate all the bad things that didn’t happen, but with no explanation of how the things they did actually prevented the city from losing power.
(That’s on top of the weird Bonneville segment, which seems like the producers sourced part of another film to pad out their own?)
I already understand how the power grid works. If I didn’t, this film wouldn’t have helped!
It's likely not meant to help, as allowing people to understand how the system works would allow them to sabotage it. It's probably more advertisement or propaganda than anything else.
Gracias por aceptarme interesante canal
I found this to be quite "shocking"
The oldest joke in the book
@@Keithbarber I still got a charge out of it.
So did Mrs. Scott let the boys from the power company eat her pie ?
At 8:15 smokestacks shown spewing out all that dirty smoke from coal burning....LoL!
I, found that funny, when the kitty's paws ,where wet.
I feel so much better now after watching this! To get in the mood, drop a cement block on your foot and then turn the volume up really loud. Trust me,it will really help...
Note that they referenced armor plate and showed warplanes, back in 1939 (before or after the Hitler/Stalin invasion of Poland?)
War clouds were forming.
I want to know where they are mining the armor plate from???
If it was aluminum armor plate it could have been the PNW. If it was steel armor plate it was likely the Iron Range area in the upper midwest.
This is 2 different films spliced together.
two different films cut together.
Alarming that hospitals didn’t have generators. I’m pretty sure they were around.
Yes, there were generators.
Oh god, poor Mary in the iron lung!
...and, to THINK, even today, there are those opposed to Polio vaccination.
This film is brought to you by.......NIKOLA TESLA!!!
Narrated by John Nesbitt.
👏👏
I was born August 1939
Why didn't they just say megawatts when calling through? Everyone who works in the generation field only works in megawatts
Power lines should have been put underground. Wouldn't have to worry about storms knocking out power lines then.
Nope. Too much power factor consumed by capacitance of the lines that way. Technical answer, I know, but, we're into engineering now.
@@uploadJ also, burying a whole country's worth of power lines would be *extremely* expensive
@@danocronopolis
Sorry, but the technical aspect of thie regarding the power lost due to capacitive 'charging' currents outweighs even the cost! It's simply **not doable** to bury HV transmission lines ... now, cost is a factor for the lines in everybody's back yard, of course ...
@@uploadJ I was told by Canadians it was impossible to shield their national grid from shut downs caused during certain auroras. Impossible is a rare word in science and technology. I very much doubt Americans would shrug off having the national grid so vulnerable to that. We get upset over what average weather does.
Our town power lines are buried but not the big transmission lines.
Electricity is your friend......
Second
Did not envision how solar and wind generation, common today, would become a liability to the grid during Summer storms, requiring support from more robust generation (coal, hydro, and nuclear) during storms.
"common"
@@johsiantorres8495 Yes. Back then, solar power hadn't yet been invented. Today, I live about a mile away from a big solar farm.
megawatts not kilowatts
This doesn't look like 1939...looks more like late 40s
That kid was so ginger even on black and white he is ginger.
Also
commie pinkos?
Thanks to God Almighty , who sent NIKOLA TESLA in this world , who invented AC. current . After this invention , power can be carried to far distance places .
Po' Thomas Edison didn't quite understand AC current at first did he? Tesla actually worked for Edison at first then Westinghouse saw his potential. Westinghouse is due much credit as well...
AC - invented in Europe, and, Tesla spoke that language, and read their technical papers.
Your PF# ruins everything
Whilst I thank you for bring us these films... This one sucks... It's fifteen minutes of waffle and ten minutes of anti-climax. I rather get the impression this was stitched together from random clips they had lying about that they tried, and failed, to stitch into some coherent story about it raining a bit.
Can't win 'em all :-D
What a terrible film. There was not the slightest hint of why a summer storn would cause the load on the local grid to increase . From the title I was sure the film was going to illustrate how Westinghouse equipment safely shunted lightning strikes to ground. Simply a profoundly disappointing fluff piece devoid of technical information.